Winter in Saranac Lake is not something residents simply endure. For ten days each year, they turn it into a celebration.
The Saranac Lake Winter Carnival fills the village with parades, fireworks, sporting events, costumes, live entertainment, and a surprising number of people who are perfectly willing to play softball in snowshoes. At the center of it all stands an enormous palace made from blocks of ice cut from Lake Flower.
First held in 1897, the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival is one of the oldest winter carnivals in the United States. What began as a small effort to brighten the coldest part of the Adirondack winter has grown into the village’s best-known annual tradition.
It is festive, occasionally a little eccentric, and deeply tied to the personality of Saranac Lake. So, let’s talk about what the Winter Carnival is, the history, buttons, and previous themes!
What Is the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival?
The Saranac Lake Winter Carnival is an annual midwinter festival held in and around the Village of Saranac Lake, New York. Rather than taking place in a single fairground or event hall, the carnival spreads across the community.
Events are held downtown, on frozen waterways, at local ski centers, in parks, at the civic center, and inside community buildings. The schedule changes somewhat from year to year, but it typically includes:
- The construction and opening of the Ice Palace
- A royal coronation
- The Gala Parade and Kiddie Parade
- Fireworks over Lake Flower
- Skiing, skating and snowshoe races
- Hockey, broomball and curling
- Snowshoe softball and snow volleyball
- Concerts and theatrical performances
- The Rotary Club Variety Show
- Family activities, contests and community gatherings
Some events feel like serious athletic competitions. Others seem to have been invented after someone looked at an ordinary summer activity and asked, “Would this be more entertaining in knee-deep snow?”
Together, they create a festival that feels much more like a community-wide party than a conventional tourist attraction.
When is the Winter Carnival? The exact dates change each year, but the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival typically runs for 10 days in early February.
Why Is the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Famous?
The carnival is famous partly because of its age. Its roots reach back to 1897, placing it among the oldest winter celebrations of its kind in the country.
Its best-known attraction, however, is the Saranac Lake Ice Palace.
Each winter, volunteers harvest large blocks of ice from Pontiac Bay on Lake Flower. The blocks are carried to shore and stacked to create a frozen fortress, usually complete with walls, towers, arches, passageways, and sculptures inspired by the year’s theme.
Colored lights make the ice glow after dark, while flags wave above the walls and visitors explore the palace grounds. During fireworks displays, the building becomes a luminous foreground for explosions of color above Lake Flower.
The palace is impressive on its own. What makes it especially meaningful is that it is built by local volunteers working outdoors during an Adirondack winter. It is not a permanent attraction created by a commercial entertainment company. It is made by the community, enjoyed for a brief period, and then surrendered to the weather.
That temporary quality is part of its charm. Every palace is different, and every one eventually melts.
Fun fact: In 1954, Saranac Lake hosted the world premiere of The Silver Chalice, the biblical epic that marked Paul Newman’s film debut. Several stars came to town and appeared in the Winter Carnival parade, although Newman later became famously embarrassed by the film and reportedly apologized for his performance! source
The Origins of the Winter Carnival
The story of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival is closely connected to the village’s history as a health resort.
During the late 1800s, Saranac Lake became internationally known as a center for the treatment of tuberculosis. Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau established the Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium nearby, and hundreds of people came to the area to “take the cure.”
Fresh air and outdoor living were central to the treatment philosophy of the period. Although patients spent long hours resting, those who were healthy enough also found ways to enjoy the surrounding mountains, forests, and frozen lakes.
Winter could be long and isolating, even by Adirondack standards. Residents and visitors needed recreation, companionship, and a reason to venture outside.
The Pontiac Club was formed in November 1896 to promote outdoor sports and help break the monotony of winter. A few months later, the club sponsored a one-day fancy-dress winter carnival in 1897.
The celebration expanded into the Pontiac Club Carnival in 1898. Early festivities included costumes, skating, skiing, races, parades, and other outdoor amusements. These events helped establish an idea that remains central to the carnival today: winter is easier to love when everyone agrees to make something of it.
A Tradition That Was Interrupted, and Revived
Although the carnival dates to 1897, it has not been held every single year since then.
After its early years, the celebration was sometimes organized every other year. There were also long interruptions during the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s.
The carnival was successfully revived during the winter of 1947–1948 and has been held annually since that revival. The royal tradition also developed during this period, with local residents chosen to serve as Carnival King and Queen.
The Ice Palace had been part of earlier celebrations but disappeared for decades after 1920. It finally returned in 1955 and once again became the visual centerpiece of the festival.
Since then, the carnival has grown into the 10-day celebration familiar to visitors today while retaining the character of a volunteer-run hometown event.
The Carnival King, Queen, and Royal Court
Every proper winter carnival needs royalty, and Saranac Lake takes that tradition seriously, though not so seriously that it stops being fun!
The festival begins with the coronation of a King and Queen. Rather than choosing celebrities or beauty-pageant winners, the community honors local people known for their volunteer service and contributions to Saranac Lake.
The royal family also includes a Prince and Princess traditionally associated with local colleges, Royal Lads and Lassies from Saranac Lake High School, elementary-school Pages, a Chamberlain and an Archbishop.
The titles are playful, but the recognition behind them is sincere. Carnival royalty represents people who have given their time and energy to the community.
Throughout the festival, the royal court attends events, rides in the parade, and mingles with residents and visitors. The ceremony adds a touch of pageantry without losing the welcoming, small-town atmosphere that makes the carnival distinctive.
Parades, Fireworks, and Winter Sports (Oh, My!)
The Gala Parade is one of the carnival’s largest and most colorful events. Businesses, schools, volunteer organizations, families and independent groups create floats and costumes based on the annual theme.
The result can include almost anything: musicians, dancers, elaborately decorated vehicles, homemade creatures and groups of residents dressed as characters from another era, or another planet.
The smaller Kiddie Parade gives younger participants their own chance to dress up and join the festivities.
Fireworks are another major part of the celebration. Displays near the Ice Palace light the sky above Lake Flower, drawing large crowds even on bitterly cold nights.
Then there are the sports.
Traditional competitions have included Nordic skiing, downhill skiing, skating, snowshoeing, and hockey. The carnival is equally famous for less conventional events such as snowshoe softball, snow volleyball, broomball, and winter woodsmen’s demonstrations.
These activities capture the carnival’s attitude toward cold weather. Snow and ice are not treated as obstacles. They are treated as equipment.
A Festival Built by Volunteers
One of the most remarkable things about the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival is that it remains a community-driven celebration.
An all-volunteer Winter Carnival Committee coordinates the festival with help from local organizations, sponsors, businesses, and residents. Volunteers plan events, organize parades, raise money, prepare venues, and perform the difficult work of constructing the Ice Palace.
That volunteer involvement helps explain why the carnival still feels personal after more than a century. Visitors are not simply watching a production staged for them. They are entering a celebration that belongs to the people who live there.
The community spirit is especially visible around the Ice Palace. Cutting, moving, and stacking massive blocks of lake ice requires machinery, skill, patience, and a willingness to work in conditions that encourage most people to remain indoors.
Yet volunteers return each year to build something they know will soon disappear.
The Tradition of Carnival Buttons and Posters
The annual Winter Carnival button has become a collectible piece of Saranac Lake history. Residents and visitors wear the buttons during the festival, and longtime collectors can trace changing themes, designs, and local styles across the decades.
The tradition became even more recognizable in 1981, when Saranac Lake native Garry Trudeau, creator of the comic strip Doonesbury, began designing the annual buttons. Trudeau has also created collectible Winter Carnival posters that help raise money for the festival.
For many families, purchasing the new button is as much a part of carnival season as watching the parade or visiting the Ice Palace.
The designs also provide a visual archive. Lined up together, the buttons and posters tell the story of changing fashions, local humor and decades of imaginative themes.
Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Themes Through the Years
Annual themes give each carnival its own personality. They inspire the Ice Palace decorations, parade floats, costumes, buttons, posters, and community events.
Some themes celebrate Adirondack history and wildlife. Others transport the village to medieval castles, tropical islands, outer space or the Roaring Twenties. A good theme is broad enough that everyone, from schoolchildren to local businesses, can find a creative way to participate.
The carnival’s recorded themes since 1966 include:
The 2020s
- 2026: Cartoonival
- 2025: Music Legends
- 2024: Creepy Carnival
- 2023: Roman Around Carnival
- 2022: Totally 80’s
- 2021: Masquerade
- 2020: Myths and Legends
The 2021 festival took place under unusual circumstances during the COVID-19 era, making “Masquerade”—also promoted with the playful spelling “Mask-erade”—an especially appropriate choice.
The 2010s
- 2019: Prehistoric Park
- 2018: Adirondack Festival
- 2017: Adirondack Wildlife
- 2016: Superheroes and Villains
- 2015: The Groovy 60’s
- 2014: Celtic Carnival
- 2013: Under the Sea
- 2012: Space Alien Invasion
- 2011: Medieval Times
- 2010: Adirondack Cowboy
This decade ranged freely from dinosaurs and aliens to superheroes, sea creatures and local Adirondack wildlife.
The 2000s
- 2009: Pirates of the Adirondacks
- 2008: Hooray for Hollywood
- 2007: Fabulous Fifties
- 2006: The Roaring 20’s
- 2005: Adirondack Aloha
- 2004: Carnival Time
- 2003: Mardi Gras
- 2002: United in the Mountains
- 2001: Do the Locomotion
- 2000: Boogie Down Broadway
Themes during the 2000s drew from movies, music, historic eras, and distant destinations—sometimes placing an unmistakably Adirondack twist on them.
The 1990s
- 1999: All-America City
- 1998: Magical Memories
- 1997: Surfin’ the Century
- 1996: Music in the Mountains
- 1995: Hurray for the Holidays
- 1994: Sister City Celebration
- 1993: Hearts and Hugs
- 1992: Saranac Lake’s First Century
- 1991: Cabin Fever
- 1990: Carnival of Commercials
The 1992 theme celebrated the centennial of the Village of Saranac Lake, while “Cabin Fever” may be one of the most naturally Adirondack carnival themes ever selected.
The 1980s
- 1989: Carnival Round-Up
- 1988: Storyland
- 1987: Cupid’s Carnival
- 1986: The Enchanted Village
- 1985: Magical Kingdom
- 1984: Once Upon a Time in Saranac Lake
- 1983: Cartoon Carnival
- 1982: Mardi Gras
- 1981: Historic Saranac Lake
- 1980: Parade of Nations
Fairy tales, cartoons, romance and local history were recurring inspirations throughout the 1980s.
The 1970s
- 1979: Carnival Dreams
- 1978: Toyland
- 1977: Anything Goes
- 1976: Magic Moments in American History
- 1975: Funtasia
- 1974: 150 Years of Progress
- 1973: Remember When
- 1972: Diamond Jubilee
- 1971: Our Town
- 1970: Circus Time
Several themes during this decade marked anniversaries or reflected on local and national history. Others, such as “Anything Goes,” gave parade builders practically unlimited room for interpretation.
The 1960s
- 1969: Anniversary Time
- 1968: Fairy Tale Festival
- 1967: Holiday Time
- 1966: Song Time in Saranac Lake
These are the earliest annual themes included in the carnival’s published theme archive.
Why the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Still Matters
It would be easy to describe the Winter Carnival as a tourist attraction, but that does not quite capture it.
The carnival certainly attracts visitors, fills local businesses, and gives travelers a memorable reason to experience the Adirondacks in winter. Yet its deeper purpose is local.
It brings residents together during the coldest and darkest part of the year. It recognizes community volunteers. It gives children traditions they may later share with their own families. It creates an excuse to wear ridiculous costumes, cheer for neighbors, watch fireworks in the snow, and stand inside a palace built from a frozen lake.
In a region where winter shapes everyday life, the carnival represents a collective decision not merely to tolerate the season, but to celebrate it.
That may be the real reason the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival has lasted so long. The Ice Palace melts. The parade floats are taken apart. The fireworks fade over Lake Flower.
Then, before too long, the community begins planning to do it all again!